RT Journal Article
T1 Same Same but Different? Gender Politics and (Trans-) National Value Contestation in Europe on Twitter
A1 Wallaschek, Stefan
A1 Kaushik, Kavyanjali
A1 Verbalyte, Monika
A1 Sojka, Aleksandra Anna
A1 Sorci, Giulana
A1 Trenz, Hans-Jörg
A1 Eigmüller, Monika
AB The progress achieved in women's rights and gender equality has become the target of a backlash driven by "anti-gender" activists and right-wing populists across EU member states. To a large extent, this conflict takes place in the digital and social media spheres, illustrating the new mediatized logic of value contestation. Therefore, we ask to what extent are the debates about gender equality on Twitter similar in three European countries, and how do users engage in these debates? We examine these questions by collecting Twitter data around the 2021 International Women's Day in Germany, Italy, and Poland. First, we show that the debate remains nationally segmented and is predominantly supportive of gender equality. While citizens engage with the gender equality value online, they do so in a prevailingly acclamatory fashion. In contrast, political and societal actors show higher levels of engagement with the value and receive more interactions on Twitter. Our study highlights the relevance of national contexts to the analysis of (transnational) social media debates and the limited political engagement of citizens on Twitter across Europe. We also critically discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a cross-country social media comparison.
PB Cogitatio Press
SN 2183-2463
YR 2022
FD 2022-02-17
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/37664
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/37664
LA eng
NO We would like to thank the participants of the panel "Populism, Anti-populism and Collective identity" and in particular Francesca Foe and Carlo Ruzza at the SISP Conference 2021 for constructive feedback as well as the anonymous reviewers and editors for their suggestions and comments on previous versions of our manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Volkswagen Foundation project "Value conflicts in a differentiated Europe: The impact of digital media on value polarization (ValCon)."
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RD 26 jun. 2024